WORD ON THE STREET/INDYPENDENT READER MEDIA WORKSOP

Weekly media workshop organized by Word on the Street and Indypendent Reader where anyone from the public can learn media-making skills. Topics of workshops will include: writing (creative, journalistic, and argumentative), research, photography, videography, interviewing, the ethics of journalism, and more.

Word on the Street (WOTS) and Indypendent Reader (IR) are organizing a media workshop open to the public. It will be held on a weekly basis every Saturday morning. The goal is to provide a members of the public the opportunity and resources to develop media-making skills of various sorts. The topics of the workshops will include: writing (creative, journalistic, and argumentative), research, photography, videography, interviewing, the ethics of journalism, and more.

It should be noted that the media workshop is not being created from scratch. WOTS has been holding separate writing and photo workshops for close to a year. WOTS teamed up with IR in order to increase economies of scale.

Course sessions

Saturday October 27
2012

The Word on the Street and Indy Reader media workshop will hold a public meeting this Saturday to discuss material for upcoming issues and find writers/photographers to cover new stories. Writers/photographers will discuss documentation techniques and find ways to collaborate on new articles. Anyone is welcome to attend.

Saturday January 12
2013

Street photography is an exciting and often fastpaced artform that utilizes a person's reflexes, knowledge of photographic priniciples, and street smarts all at once. Sometime intimidating for photography beginners, this course will teach the basics of street photography and provide helpful tips for new photographers who want to document stories in an urban landscape.

Saturday February 2
2013

This workshop will focus on how to take one's personal experience, and communicate it through written narrative. In reviewing the basic structures and strategies present in most written stories, we hope to make newer writers more aware of the storytelling tools available to them, while giving experienced writers a refresher. Another topic of discussion will be the various genres we can choose for our stories; we'll explore the pros and cons of representing our experiences through creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, or even plays.

Saturday February 16
2013

This workshop will focus on how to take one's personal experience, and communicate it through written narrative. In reviewing the basic structures and strategies present in most written stories, we hope to make newer writers more aware of the storytelling tools available to them, while giving experienced writers a refresher. Another topic of discussion will be the various genres we can choose for our stories; we'll explore the pros and cons of representing our experiences through creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, or even plays.

Saturday February 9
2013

Investigative journalism is a writing form that takes shape through extensive research, critical thinking and digging deep when interviewing. This workshop will help you think about different methods of getting to the core of a story that may not have been told yet by anyone else.

Facilitator: Brandi Bottalico

Saturday February 2
2013

Saturday February 23
2013

This week we will focus on night photography and how to take a successful picture in low light. We will look at examples from some of the best night photographers and discuss how to utilize street lights, moonlight, and flash successfully. This workshop should serve as an introduction to night photography and is intended for photo beginners.

Saturday March 23
2013

Grassroots Media Workshops will return March 23rd with Style and the Message in Documentary Photography facilitated by Michael.

Style can radically change the message of a photograph. This workshop will focus on how style can change the mood and message of documentary photography. We will look at examples of some of the great documentarians and consider how their different philosophies and techniques change the message of their images. Participants in this week’s workshop will learn how to identify stylistic techniques and gain new insights into stylistic techniques that compliment their photographic interests.

Saturday April 6
2013

The WOTS/IR team will be attending "The New Faces of War" conference by Historians Against the War - April 5-7
Friday, April 5 - the conference kicks off at 2640 from 7-9pm (if you haven't yet registered you can do so from 6-7)
Saturday-Sunday, April 6 & 7 - the conference is held at the College of Liberal Arts Building at Towson University
SCHEDULE
*The conference is donation only for residents of the greater Baltimore Area*

Saturday April 20
2013

Saturday April 20
2013

In this workshop, we will explore "independent media" by comparing it to the U.S. "mainstream corporate media." In doing so, we will investigate the internal structure of the mainstream corporate media, its relationship to dominant societal sectors, namely the government and corporate sectors, and how it relates to the broader public. We will also discuss the ideology that informs mainstream media output, focusing in particular on examples of reporting and commentary on U.S. foreign policy. From here, we will explore where independent media models differ from the mainstream media model in these crucial respects (internal structure, relationship to government and corporate sectors, relationship to readers, and ideology). The use of concrete examples, both institutions and media output, will be used to inform our discussion. The workshop will be faciliated by Stephen Roblin, a collective member of Baltimore's Indypendent Reader.

Saturday April 27
2013

Why do we use statistics in the news? Are stats helpful or do they simply confuse the reader? We will look at some examples and Damien will show us how to properly discern and use stats in media-making.

Saturday May 4
2013

In this workshop, we will explore "independent media" by comparing it to the U.S. "mainstream corporate media." In doing so, we will investigate the internal structure of the mainstream corporate media, its relationship to dominant societal sectors, namely the government and corporate sectors, and how it relates to the broader public. We will also discuss the ideology that informs mainstream media output, focusing in particular on examples of reporting and commentary on U.S. foreign policy. From here, we will explore where independent media models differ from the mainstream media model in these crucial respects (internal structure, relationship to government and corporate sectors, relationship to readers, and ideology). The use of concrete examples, both institutions and media output, will be used to inform our discussion. The workshop will be faciliated by Stephen Roblin, a collective member of Baltimore's Indypendent Reader.